Most schools offer junk food
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Nine out of 10 U.S schools offer snack food or soda to students in direct competition with school lunches, the U.S. General Accountability Office reported on Wednesday.
Some, but not all, of the snacks are “junk” food. Consumer groups and some politicians have called for immediate legislation to regulate the nutritional content of what foods schools can offer—even those in vending machines.
S. Africa says AIDS drugs on track despite critics
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South Africa’s anti-AIDS drugs programme is on track but the government does not have the resources to adequately monitor and evaluate the campaign, a top official said on Thursday.
South Africa is the country hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic with more than 5 million of its 45 million population believed to be infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Animal-human transplants soon to be reality
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Transplants of animal organs into people could take place within a few years because of the acute shortages of donated human organs, a leading scientist said on Friday.
“It is only in recent years that many of the potential immunological problems, such as transplant rejection, have been solved, meaning the process of transplanting organs from one species into another could soon be a reality,” said Dr. Anthony Warrens, of Imperial College London.
Many U.S. doctors ill-trained on cultural gaps - study
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Many U.S. physicians are not being trained adequately about how to deal with cultural differences among immigrants and others that may affect the way medicine is practiced, a study said on Tuesday.
“These findings have implications for how residency training programs prepare physicians to provide high-quality care to an increasingly diverse nation,” said the report from Massachusetts General Hospital published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Blood pressure lowering helpful after stroke
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After people suffer a Stroke, lowering their blood pressure can slow or even stop the progression of lesions in the brain, new research suggests. The areas of damage are called white matter hyperintensities, or WMHs, because they show up brightly on MRI, and they have been linked to the development of dementia and Depression.
“Several studies have linked WMHs with hypertension, but it was unknown if blood pressure lowering could slow the progression of these lesions,” said Dr. Christophe Tzourio, from Hopital La Salpetriere in Paris.
Study finds drug stents often not cost-effective
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Popular new drug-coated devices to keep arteries open are not cost-effective for many heart patients and their use could be restricted to high-risk groups, researchers said on Tuesday.
The worldwide market for drug-eluting stents—tiny wire-mesh tubes that hold open cleared arteries while dispersing a medicine to prevent re-clogging—is $5.5 billion and growing fast.
They are increasingly being used instead of older bare metal stents.
Prototype vaccine protects against fungal infections
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Scientists in Italy have developed and tested a vaccine that protects lab animals against fungal infections that commonly infect people.
Current vaccines work against bacteria and viruses, but fungi can also cause serious disease, especially in people with impaired immune systems. The experimental vaccine developed by Dr. Antonio Cassone and his associates is therefore good news, even if it is only in the early stages of development.
Femara beneficial after tamoxifen in breast cancer
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Updated results from a large study reaffirm that women who take the drug Femara following 5 years of tamoxifen treatment for Breast cancer are less likely to have a recurrence of the disease.
Treatment with Femara, known generically as letrozole, “should be discussed with all postmenopausal women completing standard adjuvant tamoxifen therapy,” investigators write in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Word test may give clues to Alzheimer’s disease
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A simple word test be used to identify people who might be suffering from the very early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, according to UK researchers.
Results of a study presented at a science conference on Tuesday revealed that people in the first stages of the incurable illness cannot write down as many animals and fruits in one-minute period as healthy individuals.
Sales of biogenerics in US, Europe to soar
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Copycat versions of expensive biotech drugs could see $16.4 billion in sales in the United States and Europe by 2011 once regulatory curbs on so-called biogenerics use are gone, a study showed on Monday.
To date, biotech drugs made using genetic engineering have been immune from generic competition, since regulators in these major markets have been slow to set clear approval rules and many are still patent-protected.
Future smart cars could help to cut road accidents
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Whether it is wafting lavender or citrus scents to calm drivers and keep them awake, or vibrating seat belts to get them to slow down, smart cars in the future could help reduce road accidents.
Dr. Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at England’s University of Oxford, said on Monday that scientists were studying utilising the senses such as smell and touch to develop features in cars to make driving safer.
Hand gels may help families fight stomach ills
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When one child in a family comes down with a stomach bug, alcohol-based hand gels may help keep it from spreading to everyone in the house, researchers reported Tuesday.
In a study of nearly 300 families, the researchers found that those that were given hand-sanitizing gels to use at home tended to suffer fewer cases of “stomach flu.” All of the families had young children in daycare, putting them at high risk of passing around the colds and gastrointestinal bugs that preschoolers often bring home.
Unions, doctors call for total British smoking ban
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Britain’s trade unions and doctors said on Monday the government should ban smoking in all workplaces, including all pubs and clubs, to protect workers’ health.
The call by the Trade Unions Congress (TUC), the umbrella organisation for the nation’s unions, and the British Medical Association (BMA) came as the government’s consultation on proposals for a selective smoking ban in England ends.
U.S. sticks to ban of Bayer antibiotic on poultry
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U.S. regulators on Friday rejected a last-ditch request from poultry veterinarians to delay its ban on a livestock antibiotic believed to reduce the effectiveness of similar drugs in humans.
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Lester Crawford said the request failed to prove there would be “irreparable harm” if the drug, called Baytril, was banned.
UK clubbers turn to animal drug Ketamine
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Ketamine, an animal anaesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, is gaining popularity as a recreational drug in Britain, an independent survey reported on Tuesday.
Charity Drugscope found that the drug, first popular in gay nightclubs, had now spread to a wider group of partygoers, and was on sale in eight of the 15 British towns and cities surveyed.
